


Unleash That Thirst

by arienai



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:37:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9033212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arienai/pseuds/arienai
Summary: A fill for prompt #25 of the 2016 Xmas Supply Drop: "I’d like something set during Jack’s training days/can be sexual or not, but I’d prefer it to be “dark” rather than fluff."
Jack tells The Boss that he'd like to do solo work. The Boss teaches him what it feels like to have no one he can turn to.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bbvqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbvqueen/gifts).



When you ask him if he's ready to start training for solo work, part of you wishes he'd said no.

His raw potential is such that he would have succeeded as part of a team. A squad. A formation. At the head of an army. You know this. You've seen it in him. He's still young enough that West Point would have taken him. You'd have written his recommendation letter. You would have dropped him off at Fort Bragg yourself; told the now-warrant then private airborne soldier in the 82nd who'd jumped next to you during Operation Overlord in Normandy to pay special attention to this one.

Of course he said yes. He wants to follow in your footsteps. And so, he will.

When you first met Jack he was an overgrown 15-year-old who'd lied his way into the Korean war; already broad-shouldered and 5'10" with a strap of black stubble on his chin, he looked more than old enough to be the 17 he claimed. He had size and he had resilience: you watched him wrestle the bloody bayonet out of the hands of a man ten years his senior and turn it into his own weapon, stabbing him repeatedly in the throat. It was his survival skills that were lacking, you realized, as he trailed you toward Pyongyang, utterly lost and at the mercy of your cast off rations and poorly cleaned animal bones. The only game he'd managed to catch for himself was an unfortunately affectionate tabby. Wherever he'd come from it'd been small, and lush.

So when the two of you returned to the US your first trip was to the desert. You taught him how to seek shelter during the day; how to navigate at night using the stars; how to dig for water and how to get it from condensation; how to track, how to hunt, what was safe to eat (tarantulas, generally) and what wasn't (scorpions, generally not). Your next trip was to Alaska in winter: he'd yelped in surprise when he first stepped off the plane and his face _hurt_ from the cold alone. You taught him how to kit up, and down, for the temperature. How to move just enough to stay warm but not to sweat. How to walk through waist-deep snow. How to make fires and snares with no equipment; he stared down a wolf at 18, and caught salmon from a frozen stream with his bare hands. Then you abandoned him until spring.

Jack caught up to you in Anchorage wearing a wolf pelt and a bristling beard.

But you're not teaching him to become a woodsman or a guide. You take him to jungles and teach him not to get sick; to chill misty rainforests and teach him to stay dry; when he's mastered the landscape itself, he'll need an adversary. He's had decent enough military training: three years of war and weapons skills from one of the world's top commandos (yes, you). What you'll teach him is something else. Something he really only needs to know if he intends to have no one else to turn to.

"Are you certain, Jack?" You won't hold it against him if he says no. He won't be the man you thought he was if he says no, but that's fine. You'll find another. "When we start there won't be any turning back."

"Yes, Boss." Confident. Eager. Sea blue eyes bright. 

You nod sharply in acknowledgment; he is exactly what you thought he was. "Then, this time, I will be your enemy. Remember that. I will be trying to capture or kill you until the moment you set foot in a town. That's when the exercise ends."

You're going back to Alaska. In the autumn, to a milder part: the coast that stretches southeast toward British Columbia. Sitka will be nearby; you don't want him to die on his first attempt. "You can carry anything with you that you like."

"What about you?" He seems skeptical: there's no challenge in this, to him. 

You were that young once.

"I'll be unarmed, this time," you reply, shrugging on a dark waterproof jacket and a comfortable pair of boots. It's all you'll need.

He screws his brows up in confusion. Clearly, this must be a test. Your lips quirk upward at the endearing overconfidence he displays when he passes up a Winchester rifle; he does take a knife, though surely as a tool, rather than a weapon. You give him until the chugging troller you've hired arrives at the cove you've specified on a map to reconsider; under the perpetually grey skies of the Pacific northwest in fall you tell him he can leave whenever he likes - you'll give him a five minute head start.

He jumps off the bow immediately and bolts for the treeline over sodden, crunching gravel, soaked to the knee.

You actually give him about an hour. Until the tide goes out and you can walk ashore across dry land.

He'll be bolting headlong toward the south, sticking to the coast. This is the right move; you'd have been embarrassed if he wasn't. There are small fishing villages at the mouths of most of the major rivers here, to stock and supply the fishermen who come for the summer runs. He's also faster than you: he's a healthy young man in his prime and you're a woman in her 30s with bad knees from too many jumps - of course he is. He knows this.

But you know that he'll pace himself poorly. Grow exhausted, while you press onward. In his haste he'll lose his bearings and backtrack, while you don't need to navigate, only track a predictable target. He'll burn his energy reserves quickly and need to forage, to hunt, or to slow down. You idly grab handfuls of huckleberries as you pass. You spot edible mushrooms on sight while he guesses; he digs clams and scrapes mussels while you take a short detour inland to fish one of the teeming thousands of spawning chinook out by the tail for icy fresh sushi.

You've caught up to him by morning.

Out on the rocks by the sea, just as you predicted. Exposed to all lines of sight and angles of attack; you click your tongue. He's been running all night and now he's starving. You wait, crouched low amongst the ferns at the treeline, until he bends over with his back to you, prying a cluster of shiny black mussels away with his knife. 

You avoid smaller rocks, sticking to moss and flat stones, moving soundlessly. With the sun shrouded by smothering clouds, you cast no shadow.

You stand behind him, the spray of the ocean matting your hair, for long heartbeats, wondering if he's truly ready for this, before he begins to turn.

He drops the mussels immediately and brings the knife to bear; you drive your boot into his exposed kidneys so hard he'll be pissing red tomorrow. He tumbles sideways into a tidal pool, thinking he'll roll away from you. You know from experience that that jagged rock is like concrete studded with broken glass - he emerges with a hundred bloody scratches and you're already on top of him. Your knee in his face. His fist in your stomach. You've already taught him how to compartmentalize pain; it'll take real damage to stop him. 

He ducks a blow to his head; your knuckles hit the rocks behind him, ripped right open. He has an opening then, vanishingly brief, to use the knife. He hesitates and you punish him for it: you grab that wrist and twist it to the breaking point, the weapon clattering uselessly down next to a small skittering crab.

He tries to elbow your throat; his eyes fly wide open when you drive your knee into his groin, but this is fair. This isn't play. No holds are barred. You're proud of him when he adjusts accordingly and goes for your eyes, forcing you onto the defensive.

He'll be stronger when he's older, but he's strong now, and he has endurance to match. Briefly, you wonder if he'll be the better grappler before age makes it no contest. He certainly isn't now. He's accustomed to fighting with the advantage of size and for the time being at least, that advantage is yours. His attention is tunnelled. He isn't paying mind to his surroundings, assuming them innocuous, or static.

He doesn't know why you pause, and wait. Doesn't think to question it. Tries to scramble out from under you at the worst possible moment when a rogue wave crests over the rocks, pounding you both flat with the force of hundreds of gallons of water. You've found cover in the pool; a handhold. He has neither. He's winded and scrabbles desperately for purchase so as not to be swept out to sea - you have time to collect the knife _and_ pounce on his back before he's recovered. 

You pull him to his feet by the hair, blade tucked up under his chin.

"Does this mean I lose?" he pants disappointedly, but the gleam in his eye from a good fight hasn't faded. It didn't fade for weeks, ravenous and freezing, in Korea. Flared back to life the moment you returned from your patrols.

"Are you dead yet?" is all you ask as you march your overconfident captive forward.

He doesn't think you'll be able to hurt him. Not like you have before. You have no tools, no instruments, not even rope. Just a knife, and your fists. He doesn't yet realize that you don't need any of that to cause someone pain. He will soon; Jack is always eager to learn, even bloody and battered: "How did you know about the wave?"

The presence of the tidal pool. The pattern of the breakers. Well-timed glances to maintain situational awareness. Normally, you would explain these to him. But you told him already: until he sets foot in town, you are his enemy. You'll tell him nothing. Instead, you simply say: "Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

"Sun Tzu," he observes, blithely ignorant to the danger he faces. "Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons, and they would follow you into the deepest valley."

Good advice, for a commander. Not a foe: as an adversary, you shove your adoptive son off the rocks and into the ocean.

The combination of current and surge smashes him right back into them in an instant. 

He won't always be the strongest man in the room. He needs to learn to move with a stronger opponent, rather than against him, and maneuver him to his advantage that way. The sea will teach him that if nothing else does: he breaks his arm trying to keep himself from being dashed against the rocks and when he screams he swallows salty water. Chokes on it. Tries to claw his way up the side one-armed, but the stones are slippery with seaweed and dotted with sharp shellfish that shred open his palm. You know that the water will be so cold it will suck the air out of his lungs and cramp his muscles in painful spasms. You know that he'll begin to shiver uncontrollably within minutes. 

When Jack hoists himself above the tideline through sheer, desperate willpower, gasping, you kick him right back down into the sea.

A look of shocked betrayal; you _warned_ him. He knows better than to plead for mercy, though - he sinks deliberately under the waves, at last, and lets the current carry him elsewhere, out of sight.

Good. Well done.

Provided he hasn't drowned he'll find a pebbled shore he can crawl out along. You won't know where he emerged: he'll have the chance to do what he should have done at the start of this, and hide.

The waterproof jacket spared most of your upper layers. You stroll back to the treeline with one eye on the shore, to find a promisingly dry and unshaded branch over which you can hang your pants after you've wrung them out. You'll only leave them there a while; they'll dry so much in the moist, frigid air. Your body heat will have to dry them the rest of the way. It serves as another head start.

It's what Jack _should_ be doing with his own clothing, when/if he makes it to land. He should move inland, strip down, use dry branches for insulation until he's warmed to the point that he's no longer shivering. Otherwise you'll find him collapsed from hypothermia. 

Around noon you find that he's done the first of these. He's covered his footsteps on the beach sloppily; he hasn't fixed any of the branches he's broken along the way into the forest. It's so obvious you suspect it might be a trap, that he might have circled back to flank you; only, you haven't taught him to do that yet. Instead, you find as you follow his tracks from a distance, that he's lit a _fire_. The audacity of that move takes your breath away for a moment. You chuckle.

You have to give credit where credit is due: it's daytime. He's lit it in a shallow gully, out of sight, and done an admirable job of making it smokeless. His clothing will be truly dry soon enough, unlike your damp trousers. He's splinted the arm with sticks, wrapped it with strips of shirt. He's fully naked, enjoying a cooked fish.

You step lightly around the amateurish traps he's laid for you: scattered sticks that will make noise, leaves over pits just deep enough to roll an ankle.

The one that gets you is the smell of roasting steelhead, which makes your stomach growl several feet behind him.

It's enough warning for him to spin around; the stake he cooked with is sharpened, you noticed on the approach, and it gives him far more reach than the knife. You lunge, to close the distance; he stabs; you're forced to catch it with your free hand and grit your teeth as your palm sizzled. He has one arm free, you have neither, and he punches you in face hard enough to leave your nose bloody.

Scrappy, but futile. You reverse your grip on the knife before he can react, grab that arm, turn, and hurl him onto the ground. He tries to kip to his feet but you catch him. Drop to your knees and close your forearm around his throat from behind. He kicks, lashes out in instinctive panic; you choke him into unconsciousness.

You'll have to work on that, with him. 

First, you drive that stake of his into the ground with a rock. Then you tie his wrists to it, behind his back, using his own belt. Then you strip off to take advantage of his fire to dry your own clothing. And eat his fish. It's delicious.

Unconsciousness bleeds into sleep; he's been running all night. By the time blinks blearily awake, shivering, night has fallen. The fire is substantial; roaring. You've made yourself a broth out of shellfish and pine needles, cooked in a sawed-off beer can washed up on the beach, which you drink in clad in comfortably dry, warm clothes, with a sigh. 

"Did I lose?" he asks again, squirming to find a more comfortable position. You've made sure there isn't one. 

"You're still alive, aren't you?" you respond, swallowing a tender, chewy clam, seasoned with a pinch of salt water. 

He frowns thoughtfully. Good. It's about time he started to use his head. The firelight gives his face shadows; makes him appear pensive. He still has a delicateness about his features that only very young men possess - it won't last much longer, you know. Beneath the taught, chiseled flesh of youth his body is already becoming hard and rugged. It won't be very long until his face follows suit. "But _why_ am I alive? If you're my enemy, wouldn't you kill me?" 

You shrug. "Any number of reasons. Perhaps you have information I need."

"Then you're going to torture me." His frown deepens.

"Possibly. That or bribe you." With the prospect of _not_ being tortured. With being released. Or simply the prospect of hot food, one that he can smell and that is clearly making him salivate. You pad over to him and press the can up to his lips. He drinks it down greedily, much to your chagrin. You wish he'd read between the lines, for once. He'll be a magnificent soldier, some day, but at this rate he'll never be much use undercover.

You've slipped pieces of a false morel into the broth. Sleight of hand has always been a strength of yours; it's something you'll teach him when he's ready for subterfuge. Not enough to kill him, just enough to make him dizzy, sap his strength.

He'll have to learn the hard way never to take what his captors are offering.

"But I don't have information you need," he muses, after drinking the whole thing down.

"No." It isn't that you've forgotten to give him any, it's that that isn't the game you're playing right now. You'll teach him to resist some other time. You're teaching him to evade, and escape.

Among other things.

Only he has no motivation to do so right now. He's far too comfortable. Escape would mean running away into the dark, unclothed. It would be wise to stay until morning, even.

But he will. He will. It's only a matter of waiting. You rest your arms across your knees, watching as his eyes lose focus; he knows something is wrong. "Did you just poison me?" His voice cracks with concern.

"Yes."

That still isn't good enough for him. Not even when you step out of the firelight to retrieve more water. He tests his bonds, nothing more. Worried that he'll collapse somewhere in the forest and die, alone. Convinced that staying here with you is somehow safer. That you won't really hurt him.

You warned him.

You are his enemy, and you kick your feet up to do nothing more than witness his discomfort. He shudders. Moans. Mumbles something under his breath that ends with 'please'. Not _already_. "What was that?"

"Could you please... let me up?" He swallows. "Just for a second. I need to piss."

"No." 

Common decency isn't part of the rules of the game you're playing. Neither is courtesy. When you've been in the field with him before, you've turned your back on his bodily functions. Any comrade would do the same.

You're not his comrade, right now. You watch. It takes about an hour until, finally, he grits his teeth and simply lets go: a thin stream of thickly yellow, dehydrated urine trickling down onto the mossy rocks between his spread thighs. He refuses to look at you while he does it; you're still watching when his eyes squint back open and the last few drops bead from his tip. 

His skin flushes dark; this is really getting to him. 

It got to you, a little, the first time. 

_What the hell are you doing here, girl?_

_Go back to being a rich man's pampered daughter._

_If you want to play soldier with us there's all kinds of things you'll have to get used to doing in front of the boys._

You finish your water and toss the can onto the fire. One less thing he can use if he does pluck up the courage to escape. He doesn't know enough yet to flinch when you kneel in front of him. He keeps waiting for the game to be over. You've barely gotten started.

He becomes aware of that when you reach for and squeeze his cold-shriveled dick.

You've touched it before. A few times. In Korea, to make sure he was cleaning it properly. When he slipped from the boulder you were scaling in Nevada and injured it. It has never been sexual; this time it is, and his body responds accordingly. It stiffens, grows, heats up under your grip. He should want to escape now. 

He sits, frozen. His lips slightly parted. He only grunts when your grip turns painful, when you press short fingernails into that sensitive skin. There's fear, there. But also expectation.

Ah. He thinks this is about _sex_.

He's so young. He reels backward when you draw the knife, fearing for his smooth, relatively unbroken skin. Fearing the worst. A few twists of your wrist keep that dread from overwhelming his interest - if indeed it is interest and not merely a physiological response. "There are all kinds of reasons I might keep you alive."

He lowers his head. His breathing is already shallow; his jaw tightens with resolve. Resolve to do what? Does he even know? What does he think you're going to do?

From his reaction, it wasn't push the handle of the knife up between his asscheeks and past his tight, dry, resisting rim. " _Boss_ ," he hisses plaintively, his brows knitted together and his eyes squeezed shut. 

"Don't beg," you murmur. "They'll want to hear you beg."

You shove it in up to the hilt in shallow, jerky thrusts while his thighs tense and the muscles of his abdomen flutter. You know it'll be unyielding and painful; you angle it upward so there'll be a queasy hint of uncomfortable pleasure every time it moves. You've kept him hard the whole time. 

At last his eyes open again. He looks right up into yours. The trust in his gaze. That you wouldn't _really_ hurt him. That you'll take care of him. Like a son might look at his mother.

You are not his mother. You are his enemy.

And Jack is an attractive young man. Which is something you haven't had in many years, so it's not all feigned when you push him down wit h your weight and grind your hips against his. Fragile flesh against unyielding bone. You feel his cock throb against your belly, now fully aroused. Your breasts press flat against the muscles of his chest. He tries to kiss you. You dig the knife hand in so hard he cries out. You wrap the fingers of your free hand around his neck.

No, this isn't sex.

Sex is the soft press of pale, delicate lips you never thought that cold Russian beauty would ever let you touch. Long-haired, long-limbed, elegant, graceful; all things you are not and the shy pounding of your heart when he drew near was your only confession. Until the day you scaled the Concertina wire of a prison camp to rescue him in one of the most foolhardy moments of your life and sheer adrenaline gave you the courage to steal a kiss.

Sex is throwing caution to the wind out of passion, of riding him under canvas sheets, of stolen moments in the back of transport vehicles with your careful arm around his narrow waist or his clever mouth on your clit. It is being so caught up in the intoxicating pleasure of his company that you don't notice until far too late the changes occurring in your body - the rigors of warfare don't help - and when you do notice, you do nothing. Because he might die tomorrow, and you like the idea of a little piece of him growing inside you.

It is deceiving yourself into thinking you'll take a few months away from the fight, after D-Day. You can't miss the most important battle of the war. When the shock of the drop sends you into early labour you tell the medic you're fine until the agony and blood loss knocks you off your feet. Then he tells you with his hand shoved inside you while bullets snap and crack overhead that the baby has the cord wrapped around its neck; that he needs to cut you open for it to survive. 

And you say yes. He guts you like the steelhead you just ate because he doesn't have the right equipment for this. You don't think you'll live; when you do, and he tells you the only price for this _idiocy_ is that you'll never bear children again, it's a relief.

Sex is seeing, for the first and last time, that your son doesn't have blue eyes like you or grey eyes like your Russian; they're blue-grey.

No, this isn't sex. This is two warm bodies grinding together pathetically in the night. Sweaty, grunting, desperate for warmth. A thin trail of saliva runs from Jack's open mouth, down over his earlobe. His bare feet drag against the moss; just to ease the pain. He's accepted this. That this is going to happen. Good. Your clit is swollen and provides a pulse of pleasure every time you bear it down again his body, but you're not wet for him.

Because this isn't sex. It's release; it's the grown up version of rubbing against the pillows as a child for comfort.

Your climax is quick, shallow, and satisfying only in the vaguest peripheral sense. Like the ones you've had to make do with on rigid cots, biting blankets, surrounded by snoring men during your time in the field.

Jack's hips buck and he trembles when he finishes; a scarcely audible sigh of your name. You wipe his semen off your jacket and onto the ground.

His round blue eyes are locked on yours. There's still hope, and trust, in them. He still thinks this is sex.

You wrench the now blood and shit-crusted knife handle out. He whimpers. Then you rise to your feet. Boots on either side of his head where he lays, panting. You undo the button of your pants, unzip your fly, lean forward against the stake, and tug them down just enough so that when you release the fluid in your bladder it streams down onto his face.

He cringes and turns to the side, eyes squeezed shut again. You remain there for long, silent minutes to see if he'll react. He doesn't.

You pull your pants back up and stalk away to wash the knife. 

When you return, he's gone. Good. Leather is pliable, it gives. He should have worked his wrists free a long time ago.

 

He won't have gone far, or quickly. He's weak from the toxin, and he'll be limping. You wait until morning. Crashing through the thick west coast forest in the dark is a particularly stupid way to roll an ankle, break a limb, or a get a branch in the eye. You're well-rested by the time bleak grey dawn crests the multitude of mountains to your east. 

He's finally using his head: you track him back to the shore, where his trail leads to a buoy that signals human habitation. From there, a gravel launch point. From there a muddy track back to a well-worn logging road. This he can follow to the next town. It will take in endurance to make it that far in his state; wits, to avoid you yet not lose sight of the road. You know, intimately, the roiling chaos that will be thrumming through his mind. How difficult it will be to part it, to wade through that torrent of emotion and come to rational conclusions.

_We lost him._

_Be a good girl. Do your duty. You will end your relationship with that Soviet. It's unseemly; unpatriotic. You can see your son again when he's older._

Luckily, this is something you have a great deal of experience with. No, it doesn't bother you that they took your child away from you. Jack is not a replacement. It doesn't bother you that they forced you and your handsome Russian - the Russian you _bled for_ \- apart. Jack is not a replacement for him, either. It doesn't bother you that they sprinkled breadcrumbs about both of them to ensure your obedience. You knew that your Russian would be treated as a hero; your son would be well-educated, well-cared for. He would be given employment commensurate with his talents, skills, and desires. You followed these to Berlin out of sheer habit. Because you were trained to track. Because you could.

Where you discovered that they'd LOST HIM.

This revelation does not distract you from your training with Jack.

No, your footfalls are light and not at all ominous. You grind your molars when you realize what he's done out of dismay, disappointment, not resentment. Not regret. Fresh tire tracks in the mud come to a skidding halt adjacent to Jack's bare footprints. He's flagged down a vehicle. Naked. Unarmed. In hostile territory.

You follow them at a brisk jog under a threatening sky. You know you shouldn't run in boots, but the ache in your shins is one you're used to. If it rains - truly rains, not the constant drizzle or mist of this place - the roads will wash out. Become impassable. They might not stop until snow falls. On warm years, until spring. You gamble that they'll have taken shelter.

When you come upon a well-lit wood cabin just off the track, you know you were right. Voices spill outward from within; smoke and steam escape from the mossy shingled roof. You don't know how he explained away his predicament: Jack has always had a talent for that. He's affable. Talks easily. Strikes up a rapport. It's one of the starkest differences between you. Perhaps he fell overboard from his fishing boat. Perhaps a spurned girlfriend had driven him out into the woods left him naked on the side of the road. 

You peer in from the outside, safe in darkness. To all appearances they are locals, or close enough. Headed to Sitka for work. Or sport fishermen from Prince George out for the last run of the season. Bearded, all: clad in mud-splattered denim and plaid flannel. Four of them. They've lent Jack similar clothing; he fits in well. Perhaps there's hope for him as an infiltrator after all. 

They offer him food, which he accepts. Offer him beer, which he accepts on the condition that they've smuggled the good stuff across the border - that makes them laugh. There's no way Jack the 19-year-old is a day under 25. 

He'll be drowsy, satisfied, weak, and drunk. He's doing it to himself.

You let him.

You knock first. Jack shrinks backwards appropriately at the sound. He doesn't run, though. He should run. He'll learn to run.

A man with a handlebar moustache over his beard and cap over his bald patch lets you in. "Look at what we have here," he smiles warmly. Glances over his shoulder at Jack. "You know her?"

Jack takes a pull from his Molson bottle and swallows thickly before he answers. "No, I don't."

No, no, _no_. You are his enemy. This is the part where he sells you out. Tells them you're the bitch who left him like this. He's done so much work to ease them onto his side - he's squandering it. You note the shotgun they have leaned up against the wood stove. They're _armed_. Jack could win the game, right here and now, with the right play.

He hesitates, instead. Fatally.

You shrug out of your jacket and nod to the man who takes it. The cabin smells pleasant; wood smoke and venison. "To what do we owe the pleasure, ma'am?" 

"I'm looking for my son," you respond.

"Sorry. Haven't seen him." The man shakes his head. "Haven't seen anybody out here but this poor bastard. You seen him?"

Jack shakes his head. Quiet. Retreating. The change in his demeanour is so readily apparent that even these strangers, who hardly know him, recognize it. Their posture shifts accordingly. They openly observe your bloody nose and black eye. Jack's broken arm and all his cuts. The knife you wear at your belt.

With your height and your build, you've never had the luxury of appearing innocuous. This is something you and Jack do share.

The man in front of you clears his throat. He knows something is very wrong - let Jack see how quickly situations like these can devolve, fueled by fear and weapons and alcohol. "There's no phone line out here. Why don't I give you a ride into town? The police might have something on your... son." 

"No, thank you," you decline, and turn to go. 

He reaches for your arm; you seize his wrist and turn it before his fingers even tighten. He utters a startled yelp - the closest to the shotgun scrambles for it, just as you knew he would. It's neither loaded nor cocked - in the time it'll take him to paw shells out of his pocket, drop them into the chamber, and aim at you, you could have thrown the man you're holding into him so hard neither of them would be getting back up again. You could strangle the other two as readily as you had Jack, in the woods. They're drunk; you're sober, stronger, the better fighter (though there are few in the world, if any, to which this last does not apply). None of these men are a threat to you.

But you do nothing.

If you threw the one man at the other, the man with the shotgun could fire and hit him. Incapacitation is always dangerous; hitting someone hard enough to render them unconscious _is_ hitting them hard enough to kill them. You do nothing when the shotgun is finally, clumsily loaded and levelled at you. When the man you hold finally wrenches himself free, nursing his wrist. He takes an angry step forward, pressing you back against the door. "Or don't come with us. We can settle things out here."

There's no phone line out here. Had Jack not heard the implicit threat in that?

"No! Wait." The little fool announces his intentions before he acts, dragging himself one-armed to his feet and lurching around the table. He's drunk, too; drugged, wounded. One of the two not engaged with you grabs Jack by the back of the head and slams him down over it. 

There's a pleading question in his eyes, when he looks at you: why aren't you stopping this? You could. He knows you could. Perhaps he thinks you have no intention of hurting civilians.

You're not going to tell him again. You're not on his side. You do nothing when the man in front of you draws your knife and uses the tip to lift your sweater up at the hem. Audibly taken aback by the display of hard-earned muscles; even moreso the winding scar. You watch impassively. He hits you with his fist, in the stomach, but between the flexing of your abdomen and the way you roll back with your body it doesn't even wind you.

The man with the shotgun _finally_ thinks to cock it. You shake your head.

" _Stop_." Jack's voice breaks with a sound that suggests that he knows where this is headed. You won't stop it and he can't. 

The last of the four circles the table and lifts Jack's head up, as curious as you are to hear how he plans to head this off before it escalates. Before it ends with corpses. He reaches for the man's belt with his good arm; you're mildly surprised. There's a growing bulge below it - Jack noticed it before you did. You're both surprised. The man doesn't know what to make of it. 

Jack seems less ashamed of this than he did last night. He doesn't look at you. The man's cock bounces free next to his chin and Jack opens his mouth for it obligingly. Relaxes his throat so that that shaft can slide down the back of it with ease. 

There are no other sounds in the room save wet suckling and the soft scrape of bristling skin on skin for quite some time.

He's done this before.

Good. That will make things easier.

Why were you surprised? At 14-year-old deployed with grown men; no family, no guardian. What did you expect?

_What did you expect?_

You could stop this. On some level, you probably should. Protect him. Tell him that you'll care for him and that he's safe with you and that it's all right, this will never happen again. 

They're all lies, though. He told you he wanted to work solo.

So, he needs to learn. Survive, Jack. Survive at all costs.

Perhaps that's what he's doing. He doesn't squirm or flinch when the man holding him down at last decides to take the offer implied and drags Jack's jeans down past his hips. He's careful not to bite down on the cock shoved past his soft palate when that man shoves his own into Jack's asshole, even though it clearly hurts. There's a low grunt of displeasure. A little blood. Nothing more. 

Heavy breathing. Panting. The strained movements of men made uncomfortable with their own arousal; circling in anticipation while Jack's body jerks in time with the men pumping inside him. They might prefer you, but what they'd have to bleed out of you, Jack is offering freely. The hips of the man holding his head stutter and he drives one last thrust in deep. Forces Jack to either swallow or choke; strokes his throat with a rough, dirt-stained thumb when Jack chooses the former.

He opens his mouth obediently for the next one, threads of saliva dripping from his chin. It's much larger and there are soft, strangled noises in the back of Jack's throat as he struggles to adjust. At last goes limp, breathing through his nose to retain consciousness while the other man simply fucks his throat.

That man makes him swallow, too. This time as a reflex. The one in his ass spills over the backs of his thighs. They both stagger backwards, satisfied.

You fold your arms. They're no longer holding him down. He could escape. _Should_ escape. What is his plan? He looks to you, but what does he want you to do?

The opportunity is inexcusably missed: the man with the shotgun passes it off to another. Positions himself behind Jack and rolls him over. Hooks Jack's knees up over his shoulders and you half-expect you'll have to move very quickly, Jack could very easily break that man's neck, now - but he doesn't. He lets the man penetrate him. Fuck him in languid strokes made easy by the prior stretching and the other man's fluids.

It's agonizingly long. Difficult to watch. Jack's skin flushes dark and the sounds he makes aren't all pained. It doesn't get him off, but there is a sheen of sweat across his skin and he's certainly not soft when at last the other man stops moving; a smear of semen leaks out between Jack's legs an onto the table when he withdraws.

Was that his plan, then? To wait until they're all sated. Take them unaware. It hasn't factored _you_ into the equation, but you will, generously, give him space to make his move. Perhaps you too would have been lulled by this.

But he does nothing. Just keeps his head turned away from you until, at last, one of them shrugs: "Another round?"

"Enough," you say, and they back off immediately. 

Startled, Jack finally raises himself up on his elbows; draws back from the hard set of your mouth. "You fail. You've let yourself be captured, and you have nothing more that they want. You're dead."

"Maybe next time, kid," one of the 'strangers' mutters, apologetically; Jack's eyes are wide and round with shock as he slowly pieces this together. They clean up and leave with a glance from you. A nod.

These men are old friends of yours.

You sit heavily, next to Jack. Sighing. At least he's no longer ashamed of this - of you, seeing him this way. He doesn't reel back when you gently push him down to inspect the damage with your fingers. A very small tear. He'll be fine. 

The game is over. You're his comrade again. And as his comrade, you can leave him politely to clean up, while you heat water. You can tend to his wounds. You can fetch the cabin's meagre first aid kit for bandages, and painkillers. You can touch him tenderly, and stroke the matted hair back from his face, while he looks away.

"We'll rest here tonight," you tell him. He's in no condition to make the hike back into town as he is. At least, not without injuring himself. You'll run him so hard he breaks at some later point. Not now. 

Still, that offer is not enough to straighten the slump in his shoulders. You sit in silence, for a time. It's not sympathy you feel, because this is the path he chose. But you _do_ feel something. 

Finally, you say: "I failed the first time, too."

It's true.

He looks up, at last, blinking. You've never shown any weakness around him, before. But this isn't weakness: "You'll only get stronger. Tomorrow, I'll tell you everything you could have done better."

Tomorrow, you'll walk him into town and take him to a real clinic. He'll need one less trip than you did. Tomorrow, you'll teach him how to fight with a broken arm. How to kick the legs out from under someone standing behind him. A good breathing pattern to stay afloat without expending too much energy in freezing water.

Tonight, he'll sleep in a real bed. Warm, and comfortable. With you. 

The trust and hope is back in his eyes when you sling an arm around his shoulders. But there's a fear in them now, too. A fear that, you know, won't fade with time.

It fills some scant corner of the hollow inside you, this knowledge that you're no longer entirely alone.

You don't know if he'll ever be stronger than you were in your youth; time will, mercilessly, make that decision for you. It will wear you down like it does all things. Someday, you'll be gone, and only that fear will remain. He'll know what to do with it. He'll carry it unto the future; he'll give it so someone else, like it was given to you.

And then _he_ will become _you_. 

So you'll never really die, will you? You'll linger in the hearts of soldiers forever.


End file.
